BARKING CROWS. 67 
As a contrast to this and other gay-looking 
birds, hosts of crows take up building-lots in the 
thick thorn-bushes and lofty pine-trees. The 
latter position is chosen by the Barking Crow 
(Corvus americanus). 
If birds are gifted with ventriloquial powers, 
I should say the Barking Crow was at the top of 
the profession. Wandering through the forest 
encircling the prairie, one’s ears are dinned by 
the extraordinary sounds made by these crows. 
Sometimes it seems as if these hidden polypho- 
nists were making all sorts of disagreeable fun of 
you, and chuckling hoarsely at their own jokes; 
then one goes in for a ‘ bit of asong,’ and others 
readily taking it up, they manage between them 
to raise, as a refrain, a combination of discords 
compared to which the parrots’ screams in the 
Zoological Gardens is whispered melody. They 
shriek, laugh, yell, shout, whistle, scream, and 
bark—driving one to wish all the crows in British 
Columbia were consigned to the depths of Hades. 
If listening eagerly for the note of a bird you are 
most wishful to discover, a Barking Crow is pretty 
sure to perch close over your head and begin its 
unearthly noises; or if enjoying the notes of a 
forest minstrel, its songs perhaps quite new to 
the ear, in comes a crow with its husky gurgling 
F2 
